Maytenus oleosa A.e.van Wyk & R.H.Archer

Slender evergreen tree up to 6 m high, unarmed, glabrous, without elastic threads in bark and leaves; bark greyish, fairly smooth or minutely cracked into fine, generally longitudinal lines. Branchlets often drooping, green, weakly 4-lined when young, becoming terete, greyish-or purplish-brown to brown and finely longitudinally striated with age. Leaves alternate, internodes usually 5-10 mm long; lamina narrowly elliptic, rarely elliptic or lanceolate, (25-)30-60(-90) mm long, (5-)7-12(-23) mm wide, base attenuate, apex acuminate, margin glandular crenulate-denticulate, denticles (4-)6-7(-8) on each side, subcoriaceous, dark green and shiny above, yellowish-green below (particularly noticeable in fresh material); venation in fresh and dried leaves (including the reticulation) very conspicuous below owing to its dark green (occasionally brownish in dried material) coloration contrasting with the yellowish-green areolar regions; midrib in fresh leaves sharply raised above but only slightly raised or ± flush with the leaf surface below; principal lateral veins alternate or opposite, usually 4-6 pairs, ± flush with leaf surface in fresh material, raised in dried specimens; reticulation flush with leaf surface or slightly raised in fresh and dried material; petiole 2-6 mm long, semi-terete, ± plane above in fresh and dried leaves; stipules minute, ± deltoid, brownish black, marcescent. Inflorescences composed of fasciculate cymes, axillary, sessile or with peduncle up to 2 mm long, 2-8-flowered. Flowers bisexual, pentamerous, c. 5 mm diam.; pedicels c. 3-5 mm long, articulated at or very near the base (usually concealed by the bracts). Sepals creamish green to green, unequal, the outer pair fleshy, ± deltoid with the apex acuminate and often shortly mucronate, venation obscure, margin sparingly brownish ciliate, the inner pair membranous, ± subrotund, enlarged, c. 1 mm long, 1.5 mm wide, margin conspicuously and sharply laciniate, remaining sepal ± intermediate between outer and inner pairs. Petals cream, broadly obovate, c. 2.1 mm long, 2 mm wide, sessile, margin plane and densely ciliolate. Stamens spreading; filaments 0.3-0.7 mm long, terete, united with the margin of the disc; anthers c. 0.3 mm long, dorsifixed, versatile, introrse, dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Disc subentire, ± flat or occasionally with a narrow, free, slightly upturned margin. Ovary c. 1/3-immersed in and adnate to the disc, 3-locular, with 2 erect collateral ovules in each locule; style c. 0.5 mm long, terete; stigma subcapitate, flattened and slightly trigonous when viewed from above, more or less smooth surfaced with 1-3(-4) interconnected shallow grooves on top. Fruit capsular, whitish-green, rarely yellowish-green, ± smooth, dehiscing loculicidally to the base, 1-2(-3)-locular, obovoid to subglobose, slightly lobed between the locules, apex slightly concave, c. 8-10 mm long and in diam. Seeds 1-2 per locule, ellipsoid, orange-brown to brown, postchalazal vascular branches not observed; fleshy endosperm present; embryo erect, with cotyledons ± fleshy; aril bistre-yellow at dehiscence, darkening to lemon on exposure and appears to stay orange-yellow after 12 hours (colours according to Stanley Gibbons Colour Key), completely enveloping the seed, surface glabrous.